Ho Chi-Fang

Born 1912 in Wanhsien District, Szechwan Province. Chinese poet and literary critic. Member of the Communist Party of China since 1938.

Ho graduated from the department of Chinese literature at Peking University in 1935. He took part in campaigns of the Eighth People’s Revolutionary Army. In the 1940’s he was dean of the faculty of literature at the L. Hsin Academy of Arts in Yenan. In 1959 he was appointed director of the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Ho’s first anthology of prose and verse, A Record of Painted Dreams, was published in 1936. His best known works are the collections of poetry Prophecy (1945) and Night Songs and Songs of Day (1952). The former collection, which reflects the influence of C. Baudelaire, aestheticism, and the New Crescent Society, is largely pessimistic in tone. The latter collection focuses on the victory of man’s higher self and the war of national liberation fought by the Chinese people. Ho’s literary criticism is represented by the collections West Park Collection (1953) and The Appreciation of Poetry (1964).